Primate Fossil Record, The

Walter C. Hartwig (ed.). 2002. The Primate Fossil Record. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 503 p., cloth, ISBN 0-52166315-6.

During the last half of the twentieth century, paleontological knowledge of primate evolution grew tremendously and continues today to expand al a (positively) alarmingly rate. Now more than ever, paleoprimatologisls are processing a more complex picture of primate evolution and are in need of an organized compendium of up-to-date discoveries and data. The Primate Fossil Record attempts to summarize and present known fossil primate material and current phylogenetic hypotheses. According to the "Preface," the goal of the present book is to offer an updated volume following in the tradition set by Eric Delson and Fred Szalay in their classic reference volume, Evolutionary History of the Primates (Academic Press, 1979). Admittedly, this is an overwhelming mission and is bound to be limited by page constraints and by the sheer amount of fossil and molecular information available to paleoprimatologists at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Given these constraints, however, this volume succeeds brilliantly as a reference source. It will be a welcome companion for paleoprimatologists for the next two decades.

In its 26 chapters, the volume covers most areas of primate evolution, from the origin of the order Primates to the evolution of early modern humans. Five of these chapters are concise summaries of primate origins (D. T. Rasmussen), the prosimian fossil record (H. H. Covert), anthropoid origins (M. Dagosto), Miocene hominoids (D. R. Pilbeam), and the fossil record of humans (H. M. McHenry). The remainder of the volume consists of quite thorough summaries split into five major fossil groups: prosimians, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, hominoid primates, and human ancestors.

The first section, "The Earliest Primates and the Fossil Record of Prosimians," addresses adapiforms (D. L. Gebo), tarsiiforms (G. E Gunnell and K. Rose), fossil lorisids (E. M. Phillips, A. Walker), and quaternary lemurs (L. F. Godfrey and W. L. Jungers). Rasmussen's introduction to the section "The Origin of Primates" provides a concise introduction to the continuing ambiguity of primate origins. His discussion of the models of primate origins includes a brief discussion of Rasmussen's own research on the locomotor and feeding behavior of the neotropical marsupial, CaIuromys, highlighting the necessity of comparative models in the study of early primate adaptations. Phillips and Walker's discussion of the scanty fossil record of the lorisids is also a welcome addition, as the evolution of the Lorisiformes is still largely unresolved and, as the chapter illustrates, is an issue that demands more research.

Following the very clear summary by M. Dagosto regarding current hypotheses concerning the origin of anthropoid primates, the second section, "The Origin and Diversification of Anthropoid Primates," covers basal anthropoids (K. C. Beard) and the fossil record of platyrrhines (A. L. Rosenberger, J. G. Fleagle, M. F Tejedor, W. C. Hartwig, D. J. Meldrum, R. D. E. MacPhee, and I. Horovitz). Dagosto's overview is especially effective, as it clearly presents several hypotheses of anthropoid origins. Tables that summarize the morphological evidence for three of these hypotheses complement the text. The subsequent chapters offer broad discussion of the platyrrhine fossil record and, compared to early chapters, are richly illustrated with both cranial and postcranial material.

"The Fossil Record of Early Catarrhines and Old World Monkeys," the third major section, includes the Eocene and Oligocene African calarrhine record (D. T. Rasmussen), Pliopithccidac (D. R. Begun), Victoriapithecidac (B. R. Benefit and M. L. McCrossin), and Neogene catarrhine radiations (N. G. Jablonski). Of note is Rasmussen's chapter "Early Catarrhines," which includes CT scans of Aegyptopithecus that illustrate characters, such as frontal thickness and interorbital structures, which are less apparent from direct observation of the fossil material. As the practice of using techniques such as CT scanning becomes common, more detailed assessments of primate skeletal morphology and function should be elucidated and likewise illustrated. Jablonski also provides an in-depth discussion of the radiation and paleoecology of Neogene cercopithecoids, highlighting the adaptations of extant and extinct Old World monkeys to a diverse range of niches.

Chapters of the fourth section, "The Fossil Record of Hominoid Primates," address Afro-Arabian catarrhines of the late Oligocene to middle Miocene (T. Harrison), European hominoids (D. R. Begun), Asian hominoid radiations (J. Kelly), and middle to late Miocene African radiations (S. C. Ward and D. L. Duren). Rounding out this treatise on primate evolution, the fifth section, "The Fossil Record of Human Ancestry," human ancestry is summarized by H. M. McHenry and described by T. D. White (early hominids), H. Dunsworth, A. Walker (early Homo), and F. H. Smith (Pleistocene hominids).